Hmmmm

Well i tried to post images from the art show, but they weren't loading. Must be too big, so i will have to try to resize them and do it again. For your information Frank, that book one below is one of mine. That one is in the show. The book pieces I did are based on the concept, if your life was a book, what would your book be. That one is about me. I made one for my mom and dad. My brother never got one. I was going to make one for his wedding as a gift, but with my procrastination and him being married less than a year... it never did come to fruition. I do need to do one for him. One day I will....

So i promised to write about the busy weekend and all that. This week i have been reflecting on it all. I came back happy and excited, but at the same point a bit bitter. I am a red belt. I should be testing for my black belt next month. I was supposed to test for it back in October, but my master was testing for his over in Korea, so both were not happening at the same time. In order for us to go to this seminar, I had to be recommended to go from my master. Which if you ask me is a great honor. Knowing that I am going to represent my school to some of the heads of the Kukkiwon, which is the Tae Kwon Do headquarters. So I made sure I knew my forms, even though at times i mess up and confuse some parts, I want to at least make it look good.

So i fly down to Dallas, getting in town around 8:30 pm. I stay at the airport waiting for the rest of my team to arrive an hour later. They show up and they just want to go to bed. I went from noon to 9:30 on a slice of pizza, as they no longer feed you or give you drinks on a plane. Two dollars for a can of soda? Go fuck yourself. And you can't even bring your own water with you on the plane. All sorts of fucked up. Anywho.... so i was starved. I wanted food. So we got to the hotel and a couple of the guys wanted food. So we went on the hunt..... Dallas sucks. No food. Dallas is closed. Nothing. I went to hotel room and for some reason i wound up eating some nasty ramen type thing out of a vending machine. Yum.

I woke up the next morning to be at training at 7:50 am. We started with an introduction, watching a dvd, followed by some stretching and basic warm up held by Grand Master Hwang. There was overall 135 practitioners in a ballroom of a hotel. They were from 8th Degree black belt down to the red belts. We were next to a wall... and lucky lucky me, I was next to a wall with a table. We had to kick and do our forms, which is what the seminar was about. I couldn't do any of them correctly in that limited space. I kicked the table multiple times and had to not kick at all at times. I was frustrated, which of course does not lend to happy forms. My mind wasn't in it, it was only concentrating on that fucking table.

We go to lunch and come back to break into groups. The red belts are placed into one room, 1st and 2nd degrees together, 3rd and 4th.... and so on. So we are waiting in our little room. There are two other red belts with me from my school. There were about 8 other people from other schools. We waited and waited for our teacher. So we decided to start going through the forms from the white belt one up. We begin and I see how the other people are. I know how my fellow classmates are. One is very good and the other woman, who is my master's wife, doesn't know anything. Sad thing is that she was extremely nervous about not knowing anything and STILL did better than some of these red belts. They were horrible. Then finally my master comes into our room to check in with us and to help us get started. He was with us the entire day. Now don't get me wrong. I have learned a lot from my master and he helped out the other people from the other schools, but I didn't want to fly all the way down to Dallas, pay 100 bucks and be trained by my own master. I was supposed to learn from the Koreans!

In the end... I did learn stuff. I am now look back to see how I felt about the experience and I am in the middle. I did write a letter over to one of the organizers to tell him what I thought. I wanted it to be critical, but at the same time, have him understand that the overall out come was good. I also found out the week we came back that the one girl that was copying me the entire time won the best of the group. Each group got one person to win the award. One of the black belts from my school won it, and he totally deserved it cause he really is good. This girl won it because she had a white scarf on her head. Now don't get me wrong. She was a very sweet girl and I was helping her as much as I could. The only reason I am assuming they picked her was because she stood out with the scarf on her head. And of course they are not going to ask my master who worked with us the entire time who deserved it. It would be like me asking a yellow belt what they thought. So... the two people in the room that WERE good, me and another guy from my school, didn't get the award. It was stupid. I am miffed at that, but there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

I did ask my master yesterday when I will be training for my black belt. This is the ONE thing I left wanting more than anything. I really want my black belt. Partially because I don't want to get dumped in with the red belts any more. I am better than most of them and know that I can stand my own in a room full of black belts. Granted.. you are what you are capable of, but in that crowd, you are what your belt is. At least the next event I go to, I will have a black belt and not be left out.